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#201 - Tracy

Tracy Chevalier is the celebrated author of Girl With a Pearl Earring. We meet the born American in her home in North London and get a glimpse at how she likes to write. Tracy also shares her feelings on becoming a well-known author.

Questions & Answers

What's your first memory of London?
Coming out of Victoria Station from the Gatwick Express and smelling the diesel fumes of black taxis. And the sun was at a weird angle in the sky compared to home (USA).

What do you miss when you're away from London?
The surprising mix of people in public places

What's your ideal night out in London?
Theatre, with supper after and a cab home. It never gets old.

What's your most hated building?
Centrepoint, because it doesn’t integrate with its surroundings at all. I’m hoping the current refurbishment will make a difference.

What's the best view in London?
The one from Waterloo Bridge.

What's been your most memorable night out in London?
Opening of Girl With a Pearl Earring in Leicester Square, complete with red carpet

How would you like to spend your ideal day off in London?
At some of the offbeat museums: the Horniman, the Geffrye, the John Soane, Leighton House, ending with tea and cake at a Yumchaa cafe somewhere

What's the worst journey you've had to make in London?
One of those ones where you have to decide, Shall I take the tube or the bus? And you choose one and it goes horribly wrong, with many delays, and you think about the route you didn’t take. That one.

What's your personal London landmark?
The Round Reading Room at the British Museum, back when it was the British Library. I spent hundreds of hours there as a reference book editor, and it taught me how to research, which I later applied to writing historical novels.

Who's your favourite fictional Londoner?
Charles Pooter in The Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith. Hilarious.

What's your favourite London film, book or documentary?
Withnail and I

For you, who is the ultimate Londoner?
That’s the great thing about London – no one is the ultimate. We all fit in here.